Arguably the most remarkable story of the current basketball season anywhere on the planet continues when Prometey Slobozhanske (14-4) hosts Veolia Towers Hamburg (6-12) in the first game of the do-or-die 7DAYS EuroCup Eighthfinals on Tuesday.
"Hosts" needs further explanation, though.
Prometey, from Ukraine, has been playing all home games except one this season at Arena Riga in the Latvian capital due to the war in its home country. Nonetheless, Prometey is 8-1 at home and currently enjoying an 11-game winning streak, tied for the 10th-longest in EuroCup history. The streak allowed Prometey to win Group A of the regular season, no small feat for a team making its EuroCup debut.
Hamburg, meanwhile, sneaked into the playoffs in eighth place in Group B despite losing seven of its last 10 games. However, half of its wins came since a coaching change brought in Benka Barloschky in early January, and more recently Hamburg lost to two top-four teams in its group by just 8 points combined.
The big question coming into this game is how Prometey will deal with a spate of significant injuries in just the last two weeks.
The team's top three performers by PIR – Caleb Agada (16.6 per game), D.J. Kennedy (16.0) and D.J. Stephens (15.3) – went down one by one.
"I don't know what to say," head coach Ronan Ginzburg commented after Stephens was hurt. "I am 40 years in basketball and I've never seen something like this. I am speechless. To lose three players in one week – it's crazy."
But it wasn't over. Team captain Denis Lukashov soon underwent surgery for a leg injury, leaving Ginzburg to face the Estonia-Latvian League final four over the weekend with nine healthy players. Undeterred, Prometey won both games by an average of 18.5 points to lift the domestic trophy.
Kennedy and Lukashov are done for the season, while Stephens missed the last three domestic games, making his status for Tuesday uncertain at best. Ginzburg commented that Agada, who has a leg injury, is trying to get healthy for the game with Hamburg despite an original prognosis of four weeks out of action, but his participation is quite doubtful.